Particle Physicists have waited long and hard for their newest toy, the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, to come on line in Geneva, Switzerland. The LHC is arguably the largest scientific instrument to date, with a circular tunnel over 16 miles in circumference.
The LHC, just like many other particle accelerators, uses electromagnetic fields to guide charged particles, like protons and electrons, on collision courses in hopes of getting a particularly good collision. Computers then analyze the collision to see how the mass of the particles changes, hoping new particles were born out of the intense energies from the initial impact.
However, the LHC is not any old particle collider. It is proposed to accelerate protons, which are relatively massive, to 7 trillion electron volts. For reference, one electron volt is the amount of energy accumulated by an electron when it passes through a potential electrostatic difference of one volt. Accelerating protons to 7 trillion electron volts is an order of magnitude greater than what has previously been accomplished.
The LHC does not stop with protons, either. As the name Large Hadron Collider, it will be colliding hadrons. Remember, particles in the group fermions are divided into two groups, leptons and quarks. Leptons are have a spin of 1/2, like muons, electrons, tauons, and neutrinos. Quarks combine via the strong nuclear force to create massive particles, like neutrons and protons. Particles composed of quarks are called hadrons. The goal of many experiments at the LHC is to smash large hadrons together, such as lead ions, to find the elusive Higgs Boson. (My next episode will have an more in depth look at the standard model of particle physics.
Finding the Higgs Boson would solve many mysteries for particle physicists. It is predicted to be the “mass giving” particle, giving mass to quarks through spontaneously created energy fields. The Higgs Boson is the only particle not yet observed in the standard model of atomic physics. Finding the Higgs Boson would be a huge step for scientists, as it would verify why photons can have no mass, whereas other particles are extremely massive. There is a race to be the first team of researchers to discover the Higgs boson.
For all of you who are concerned that the finding the Higgs Boson will end particle physics, don’t worry. As is always the case in particle physics, one development leads to many more questions than it solves. Theorists will still be searching for evidence of Grand Unification theories, such as magnetic monopoles and decaying protons. Finding the Higgs Boson may explain how particles become massive, but leaves many questions unanswered.
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